


Something Like That

by kerlin



Category: Alias
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-31
Updated: 2010-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-11 09:11:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kerlin/pseuds/kerlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's going home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Like That

**Author's Note:**

> post-ep for 4x11, "The Road Home"

Sam was in a play once in middle school. Mostly, he tried out because he had a crush on Molly Whittier, and he thought maybe if he got a part…

He ended up as Guy in Bar #3, and his sole on-stage responsibility was to jump out of the way of the two guys fighting over Molly's character.

Sam wasn't a very good actor, as it turned out. He found the whole idea just a little bit silly. Being somewhat dissatisfied with his own personality didn’t necessarily mean he should try another on for size.

Friends came and went, and he was still uncomfortable in his own skin in a way he couldn't communicate to anyone verbally. Words became more and more important even as rejection letters came more and more frequently.

He couldn't help but have interesting experiences to write about in a place like Salzburg, went the reasoning. In his mind, Salzburg was the end of a mystical equation that combined all the necessary elements to a writing career and an exciting life.

Six months in and the only thing he could write about with any authority was the selection of domestic and imported beers at the nightclub he'd stumbled into on his first night in town.

It wasn't like he wasn't observant. Sam could usually figure out a person's life story faster than the bartender – had in fact spent a week winning money off that running bet – but when he got home to his apartment in the morning and opened up his laptop, the only words that appeared were about the relative merits of the local lager.

He had never misread anyone as badly as he'd misread Sydney "Phoenix" Bristow.

She had played him expertly, had him stuttering and blushing in a way that brought him right back to Molly and seventh grade. He should've realized that she was playing a role, too, and that he was destined to be the guy in the bar once again, jumping out of the way of other people's fights.

Sam wasn't bitter. That was the honest truth. Mostly, he was still too blown away to be properly bitter, but he wasn't sure that he would ever be bitter. She'd saved his life a half-dozen times in one night, and she'd sat with him in a stadium and talked about sharing secrets. And then she'd smiled at him.

Sydney's life was on such a huge canvas that for her Salzburg wasn't a talisman against post-college apathy, it was just another place to go.

When he got home he found a new apartment and stayed in it for a week, only surfacing to get groceries. He mailed the short story on Monday morning and received his first acceptance letter on Thursday afternoon.

Two months later, he got a postcard from Paris congratulating him on his first publication. It was signed Kate Jones.

He kept the postcard on his corkboard and told visitors that it was from a girl he'd met in Salzburg.


End file.
